Edmund Schubert Withdraws from 2015 Hugo Awards

Edmund Schubert, previously announced as a finalist for the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form, announced on April 27, 2015 that he was withdrawing from contention for the Award. In a statement published on his behalf by Alethea Kontis “because he has no true platform of his own from which to speak,” Schubert writes, in part:

My name is Edmund R. Schubert, and I am announcing my withdrawal from the Hugo category of Best Editor (Short Form)…. Regrettably this situation is complicated by the fact that when I came to this decision, the WorldCon organizers told me the ballot was ‘frozen.’ This is a pity, because… I would very much have liked to see someone else who had earned it on their own… get on the ballot in my place. But the ballots had already been sent off to the printers…. So it seems that the best I can do at this stage is ask everyone with a Hugo ballot to pretend I’m not there. Ignore my name, because if they call my name at the award ceremony, I won’t accept the chrome rocketship. My name may be on that ballot, but it’s not there the way I’d have preferred.

In a further statement on the Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show web site, Schubert confirmed his decision, saying, “I therefore withdrew my name from consideration.”

The 2015 Hugo Awards final ballot will be mailed to members of the 2015 Worldcon soon. An electronic version of the 2015 Hugo Awards final ballot is available on the 2015 Worldcon web site. Only members of the 2015 Worldcon are eligible to vote on the 2015 Hugo Awards final ballot. Lead 2015 Hugo Award Administrator John Lorentz stated that “There will be a notice on the online ballot form, listing the finalists who have asked people not to vote for them.”